According to the Association of Fruit and Vegetable Processors Speranța Con, this enterprise manages to buy several hundred tons of raw materials per week only because it offers farmers and intermediary traders more than 4 lei/kg for a low quality apple, suitable only for processing. The management of other canning factories considers this price level to be excessive.
Usually in winter-spring the purchase price is lower or, at best, equal to the average price during the most active season of apple processing (August-November). Last fall, Speranța Con estimated that the largest amount of industrial apple in the country was purchased at 3.5-4 lei/kg. For a short period, some processors paid 5-6 lei/kg to large apple suppliers. However, relatively small quantities of raw materials were purchased at such an obviously overpriced price.
According to Speranța Con’s estimation, the total amount of apple from the 2024 harvest was about 220-230 thousand tons for processing. The industry association believes that until the end of this spring, the volume of last year’s apple shipments for processing will be very small.
In the winter-spring period, the maximum amount of apples, about 40 thousand tons, arrived at Moldovan factories producing apple concentrate three years ago.
